In the Buddha's time, there was a female beggar called Nanda. Although she lived in great poverty, she was very kind and wise.
The poor girl always lamented, "Alas! I am so poor that I have to worry about my survival every day! It's all because I didn't give some of my possessions to help others in my previous life and therefore did not cultivate any blessings. Now, I am so poor that I have to beg for food and have nothing of my own, so how can I practice giving?"
Little did she know that she still had some blessings coming her way. One day, when she finally got a cent from her begging, the poor girl happened to learn that King Prasenajit had just asked the Buddha to come to the Palace for dinner. To welcome the Buddha, the whole path from the Jetavana Anathapindaka Arama Monastery to the Palace was going to be decorated with oil lanterns. The poor girl was astonished, and said, "Wow! The King's blessings are so great that he can offer many lanterns to the Buddha! How enviable is that!"
She also wanted to offer a lantern to the Buddha, so she went to buy some lantern oil with the cent she had been given. Of course, the amount of oil that a cent could buy was really limited, so when the oil merchant asked her what the oil would be used for, Nanda told him. The oil merchant sympathized with her and gave her enough oil to light one lantern.
Nanda was overjoyed to get so much lantern oil! She ran to the Jetavana Anathapindaka Arama Monastery and made an offering to the Buddha by pouring the oil into one of the lanterns. She then prayed, "Although I live in poverty right now, I am offering this little lantern to the Buddha. I hope that with the merits from this I will gain great wisdom, and save others from darkness in my next life."
The lanterns that King Prasenajit offered were only meant to be lit overnight, so, without being refilled, all his lanterns burned out before morning. However, the lantern that the poor girl had offered did not die out, but became even brighter and more beautiful instead! Not only that, when people came to collect all the lanterns the next morning, they could not extinguish Nanda's lantern at all! Even with his great spiritual powers, the Venerable Maudgalyayana himself could not put out her little lantern.
"How strange it is," wondered everyone in the Monastery,
"that this lantern keeps burning!" They soon learned that it was the lantern offered by Nanda, the poor beggar girl, and ran to tell the strange story to the Buddha. The Buddha then said to his disciples,
"The Venerable Maudgalyayana's Shravaka powers cannot put out this light; even all the water of the Four Oceans and the strong winds of Vairambha cannot put it out, because it was offered by a person who had great determination! Since the girl Nanda lit the lantern with such determination, it will keep shining, and she will be reborn in the World of Light with a radiant body and enjoy endless blessings.
After countless kalpas, she will become a Buddha."
It is quite difficult for ordinary people to understand that a poor beggar girl like Nanda could be reborn in the World of Light in a luminous body, and become a Buddha just from the merit of offering one cent to light a lantern for the Buddha! How could it be possible?
However, since the Buddha always told the truth and only the truth, his explanation and prediction had to be true.
Regarding the Buddha's predictions of the attainment of Buddhahood, the Sutras tell us that the Buddha did not openly predict future Buddhahood for simply any being who made ordinary donations, but only for Bodhisattvas at the stage of non-regression, and only under certain conditions. If you are wondering how a poor beggar girl like Nanda could have been a Bodhisattva, you have to realize that it is all about cause and effect. The phenomenon of cause and effect can be seen in our everyday lives. If you are hungry, eating will make your hunger go away; if you feel thirsty, a cup of tea will satisfy your thirst. In the latter case, the tea is the cause and your satisfaction is the effect. This kind of cause and effect is easy to see; however, only Buddhas can thoroughly fathom the subtler kinds of causes and effects.
Since the poor girl was able to receive the Buddha's prediction of her becoming a Buddha in the future, she must therefore have the nature of a Bodhisattva. How then, you might wonder, did Nanda come to be living in such extreme poverty as an effect of the causes in a previous life? The reason is that the Law of Cause and Effect spans Three Periods: the past, the present, and the future.
The poor girl must have planted the causes of her poverty in one of her previous lives, but she must have also established the roots of a non-regressive Bodhisattva for the Buddha to predict her future attainment of Buddhahood. From this story, you should learn that those who seem to be an insignificant person now may nevertheless have incredibly good roots and have fostered many blessings and virtues, only such particular causes and conditions have yet to ripen. They are just like a sapling which will blossom and bear fruit when the time is right, and at that time, the flowers will emit wonderful fragrances, and the fruits will be extremely delicious!
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